If you look at Maggie Culver’s biography on Lawrence’s athletics website, you’ll see that she is a senior guard on the women’s basketball team from Winfield, Ill., and she is majoring in neuroscience and minoring in psychology. If you meet her in person, though, you’ll see that she is an amazing ambassador for her team and her sport.
During our interview, she expressed many different reasons why she loves the sport: “I like the physicality. It’s an emotional sport. I feel like it gives me an outlet to be emotional. I feel like there’s a stigma in women’s sports; you can’t show emotion, you can’t be tough and physical — being tough and physical is so fun.”
It may be surprising, then, to learn that when her father introduced her to the sport when she was 12, she had very different feelings about it. “I actually hated basketball,” Culver said. “Everyone around me was so good, and I was just starting out.” She also recalled being a committed softball player at the time: “I loved softball. I was fully convinced that was the sport I was going to play in college.”
Culver transferred to a private high school after her freshman year, which ended up changing the course of her athletic career. In Illinois, private transfer students must give up their next year of athletic eligibility. The basketball coach at her new school still allowed her to be a practice player and she ended up acting as a team manager of sorts. As she described: “I got to practice, I came to all the games. […] I was basically on the team, but I just couldn’t play in games.” When the spring athletic season came around, the softball coach was not interested in giving her a similar arrangement. “He wanted nothing to do with me,” she said. To her, it was “heartbreaking” to not be able to play softball anymore.
Although it was difficult at the time, it made her become even more devoted to basketball. When asked about when she started loving basketball, she talked about her ability to remember specific games and moments. She recalled a game during her junior year of high school where she scored 27 points: “That was the best game of my career; still, to this day, it’s as many points as I’ve ever scored in a game. […] Coming out of the gym, I was so happy. I was so excited. We had beat this huge division rival — a team that was supposed to kill us by, like, 30 [points], and we beat them by 20 [points].”
Originally, Culver was not interested in playing in college, but after COVID-19 impacted her last seasons of high school basketball, she decided she didn’t want to end her career “on a question mark.”
“I picked Lawrence once I decided that I wanted to be a student athlete,” Culver said, explaining that she liked the mix of academics and athletics, the small size of campus and the neuroscience major. She doesn’t regret her decision to come to Lawrence: “I feel like I’ve gotten a lot out of my education here.”
Being a student athlete is no easy feat, however. “Lawrence is a very intense school,” Culver noted. “Being able to prioritize your academics first, your athletics second, and then making them work together […] I feel like that’s definitely been the most challenging part. […] The ‘Lawrence Busy’ is so real.”
She’s never regretted her decision to play basketball in college, either, despite its challenges. “Most of my friends that I’ve made here are my teammates. […] They become your family. […] I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet these amazing people had I not chosen to come here.”
Culver is particularly excited about the current season. “We’re having the best season that I’ve had here,” she said. “Last year, we were just excited to get to the [conference] tournament. This year, we fully, wholeheartedly believe that we can win. […] I think that everyone wants it really badly.”
Looking back on her time at Lawrence, she feels confident about the individual legacy she’s left on the program, “I just passed, I think, 800 career points and 500 rebounds,” she said, but noted her teammates’ achievements as well. “All you want to do is see your teammates succeed,” Culver said. Her favorite basketball memory is beating Ripon at a home game last year. She remembered it very clearly because it was her then-roommate’s senior day. “The energy was just crazy. […] We beat them by 2 [points]. They were ranked number one in the conference at the time.”
After she graduates, Culver plans to take at least two gap years to gain patient care experience before applying to Physician’s Assistant programs. She wants to keep basketball in her life in some capacity: “I just love the sport so much, and I think I’ll always want to be around it.” She spoke of her desire to possibly coach “when [she’s] done as a player.”
“I don’t know where I’d be without basketball,” Culver said as the interview concluded. “It’s taught me how to direct my emotions in healthy and positive ways. I also think it’s taught me to be resilient. […] It’s just the best feeling in the world when you’re surrounded by people who love the game with you.”
The women’s basketball team will have their final home game and senior day on Saturday, Feb. 15 in Alexander Gymnasium starting at 1 p.m.